Ice Dams and Attic Ventilation Pt. 2

So here's my follow up on my post on ice dams and some corrective measures.  First of all, correcting what is causing the ice dam should be your primary concern.  If your house is of recent vintage, you're probably going to find it rather easy to correct.  Modern houses (20-30 years old) typically have large overhanging soffits.  Sometimes the house was set up correctly for ventilation and insulation was installed in a manner that blocked the free flow of air into the attic from the soffits.

In the diagram above, you can see how the intake air enters.  It then rises to the roof vents; ridge vents, gable vents or the standard old metal "static" vents and out of the attic.  Sometimes overzealous homeowners or insulation contractors block the flow.  To correct this, vent baffles are available.

These foam vents help to keep the insulation from pushing against the underside of the roof sheathing and blocking the air flow.  But......

Yo must verify that the soffits have vents in them in the first place.  A newer house will most likely have vinyl soffit venting installed, but you never know what's behind it.  In a wood house, you can simply look at the wood soffits and see if there are vent.  Another way is to go in the attic and turn off the lights.  If there are vents you'll see some light coming from the soffits; the more the better.  If there is no light and no visual evidence of soffit vents on the exterior, then you'll probably need to install some.  See below for a few photos of soffit vents.

There are some houses that are extremely difficult to ventilate due to design.  There is always a solution, it may not be perfect and it may not be easy to find a contractor who knows how to do it.  I'll talk about the more difficult vernting solutions in the next blog.

A classic photo of the dreaded ice dam

I had the opportunity to take a photo of a textbook case of ice damming the other day.

So you've got big icicles, and if things are really bad, water is entering the interior near the ceiling.  This is why.  When the temperature hovers around freezing, during the day the attic warms and melts the snow on the roof.  It travels as water to the eaves, where it re-freezes.  As the cycle is repeated, it eventually builds an   "ice dam".
What happens next is that water is trapped behind it and backs up under the shingles causing the leaks.  Leaking may enter the soffit and run down the exterior wall, and in the worst case scenario, the inside of the house.
How to fix it?  Ice guard can be used when a new roof is installed.  It's a rubber membrane that is placed at the lower edges of the roof instead of the familiar tar or felt paper.  It seals around nails and typically is folded over the fascia board, so if water backs up under the shingles, it simply travels over the top of the ice guard to the gutter/fascia.
The other way is to keep the roof cold through proper venting.  The colder the roof/attic space,  it becomes less likely that heat will melt the snow.
More on corrective action and some of the problems that are encountered when doing them in my next blog.

Careful With Those Water Lines!

In keeping with the exterior faucet/Winter theme, you can never get enough warnings about keeping pipes from freezing.

As a home inspector, I often see plumbing in places where I worry about what will happen on those super cold nights, the ones where the mercury dips below 0 for several nights in a row.

Even if you live in a new house with frost proof faucets installed on the exterior, sometimes there are areas or rooms where temperatures can dip dangerously close to freezing.  Lots of new construction has laundry sinks in the garage, make sure those garage doors are closed at night and if this is your first winter in your new house, you may want to put a thermometer in the garage and check on it during those hard freeze nights.

A more common pipe freezing problem is when renovations place pipes in unheated areas.  A typical example is when a kitchen remodel moves the sink lines to the outside walls etc.  In a lot of older ranches and bungalows circa 40s and 50s there are little "bump outs" or soffits that overhang free space.  These locations are very susceptible to freezing pipes, if plumbing is installed.

Use common sense and caution this winter.  Keep an eye on those pipes, open cabinet doors beneath sinks when to circulate warm air if needed.  Heated pipe wrapping is also available if you identify a pipe that may freeze.  An ounce of protection ahead of the trouble can save thousands in flood damage.

Frost proof faucets

As we dip back into more seasonal temperatures overnight here in NE Ohio, I thought I'd talk about frost proof faucets.

There are basically two types of faucets used on the exterior of homes, although this information would also apply to faucets installed inside attached garages.  The first is the old standard, seen on houses since they started putting exterior faucets in.

The rubber valve that stops the flow of water is right at the faucet.  If you were to take this one off the house, it would consist of the greenish portion only; there would still be a small portion of pipe sticking out of the house.  Why is this not good in colder climates?  When you shut the water off, water is present in that portion of the pipe that sticks out and is subject to freezing.  Freezing water expands and bursts pipes.

The solution, is to put the valve that stops the water flowing deep inside the house where the temperatures are warmer.  This type of valve looks like this:

This works relatively well, but of course isn't completely infallible.  Under the right conditions, even these can freeze, so it's a good idea to use common sense with water in areas of the  country where you experience freezing temperatures.  I routinely tell clients during home inspections to be mindful of keeping garage doors closed during hard freezes, the kind of nights where it's single on negative digits.  Also, make sure your faucet is well sealed to the house with caulking etc.  And putting one of these in at an unheated crawlspace is also asking more of it than it was designed to do.  Remember, the copper pipe portion of the valve in the photo above must extend into a heated space.

There's lots more info out there on these if you want to read more.  They're a great device that allows you to hook up the hose on those warmer winter days without having to head into the basement and turn the water back on and then bleed the line again when finished.  You also don't have to remember to turn these off.  Just remember that it does still have water back at that inner end, and if it's cold enough, it can still freeze depending on where on your house this is installed.

New Construction Inspections PT 2

As home inspectors, we sometimes get asked to inspect new condos.  The other day I inspected a condo for a client who was to close in four days.  Workers were still in the unit trying to finish things up.  There was a long, long list of items I found that required completion.  Some were items that you might expect, missing hardware on kitchen cabinets etc. but many were not.

One of the things a home inspector can really help with on a new construction inspection is verifying all is in order.  Buying a house or condo keeps you pretty busy, and by hiring a home inspector for a few hundred dollars they can do a methodical inspection of all the supposedly perfect things in your new house.

The example from the other day was a condo in Ohio City.  If your house was built in the winter, you can bet the furnace was installed to help dry the drywall work.  Unfortunately you can also bet that no filters were installed in your furnace, and that as the drywall was sanded and the house was swept (over and over) that your furnace saw the brunt of this.  We often find brand new furnaces caked with construction dirt.  The ductwork will also be subject to this.  Who checks the ductwork on a brand new house?  The home inspector does.

In this instance, due to the economy, this condo project, which was new construction within the walls of 100 year old building had seen a very long delay between start and finish of the units.  The furnace, air conditioner and hot water tank, besides being filthy, were all almost 6 years old when I inspected them.  Questions are raised in this situation: will the warranties be honored?  If not, perhaps the builder can purchase a warranty on these mechanicals.

The bottom line is that inspections on new construction can save you problems and money, just as they can on older homes.  My advice is don't skimp on an inspection under any circumstances.

Inspections For New Construction

I thought I'd take a moment to talk about the importance of inspections for new construction.  Most people think "it's a new house, the builder gave me a warranty, why have a home inspection?"

The reality is you probably do still need a home inspection.  I've done more than a few inspections where problems were of such magnitude  that the buyers chose not to purchase the home.  I'll give a few examples.

This past summer, during the height of the drought I inspected a development home built by one of the areas major builders.  The home wasn't brand new, having been lived in about one year prior to the owners being transferred.  Things got interesting in the finished basement.  The lower half of the drywall had been replaced, and the recently installed carpeting had been removed.  These are clear indications of water damage.

Of course the sellers had nothing about any of this in the disclosure.  There was a sump pump installed which was not working.  As I told the potential buyers that the sump needed replacement and re-installed the cover, the sump began to run.  And run.  And run.  It pumped water from the basin for the next 30 minutes or so.  I finished my basement inspection and it was still running.

I had not seen water in that amount draining that long in a sump.  It was like fire hoses were filling the basin.  Clearly something was amiss.  I delayed my departure a bit to see if it would eventually cease and it didn't.  The buyer realtor called the seller agent to let them know something was not as it should be.

I contacted several colleagues about this and all agreed that there might be water table issues in the area or that the sump was discharging at the exterior and coming right back in.  Two days later, when the Radon tester arrived to pick up the Radon monitor, he called me to confirm that after two full days, the pump was still running.  I suggested the buyers do some old fashioned detective work and talk to neighbors in the development.  Sure enough, stories of flooding and failing sump pumps (these things weren't made to run that much) from both sides.

Figuring out exactly what caused this would take some diagnostics by qualified contractors.  The buyers, who thought a one year old house would be worry free decided to buy another house.  

Tomorrow, I'll post an inspection story about a brand new townhouse/apartment.

Just An Interesting Use of Railroad Track

I thought I'd post this just for fun.  I worked with several fellow inspectors on an old church that was being sold by the Catholic Diocese here in Cleveland.  Very interesting job overall, as the sale consisted of several buildings including a school.  In one class room there were photos of the presidents they stopped at Nixon- his photo had "1968"- beneath it!

The house used by the priests was using this railroad track for the main beam in the basement!  My fellow inspector noted that it was probably from a light gauge trolley that used to run here in Cleveland.